When the Inclined Plane Boat lift was under construction at Foxton, masses of soil and other material had to be moved to reshape the hill. The material was loaded in to these narrow gauge tipper trucks and pulled by a horse or a stationery steam engine.
These were the dumper trucks of the Victorian era. They ran on rails which could easily be moved as the work changed. When the lift opened in 1900 the trucks were moved to various canal sites, this one was used in the gravel pits at Welford to load boats.
These trucks were involved in the only fatal accident during lift construction; a fall of earth trapped a workman.
